Conventionally, a navigation apparatus such as the one disclosed in Japanese patent document JP-A-H07-91974 allows the user to “draw” or “trace” a desired navigation route from the current position to the destination on a displayed map on the screen, when the map is displayed on a touch-sensitive display screen. The traced roads on the displayed map are then recognized by the navigation apparatus as a navigation route, thereby enabling the user to specify a complicated route as a user-desired navigation route.
However, the above navigation apparatus forces the user to draw the desired navigation route from the scratch if the recognized route derived from the first route setting turns out to be different from a user-intended route. That is, in other words, even when the user desires to change just a portion of the recognized route, the entire route from the start point to the destination has to be re-drawn on the displayed map, in a manner that is similar to the first route setting for drawing the intended route. Thus, re-routing and partially modifying the recognized route are not easy for the user of the navigation apparatus.